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68 • THE AUSTRALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT YEARBOOK EDITION 23
Solar and wind energy have been
used in Australia for several
decades. The explosive uptake
of solar electricity, particularly at the
domestic level, started in force in 2008
on the back of generous state-backed
feed-in tariffs. For environmentalists
and solar professionals alike, it seemed
as though we were at last collectively
on the brink of saving the world from
catastrophic, civilisation-ending climate
change. As time went by and the
generous feed-in tariffs abated, other
solar-related issues started to emerge,
with grid instability and unhappy
distribution network owners starting to
lose market share to solar generation. The
solar honeymoon was over.
Renewable energy has many
advantages over its fossil-fuel rivals.
It can easily be generated at, or close
to, its place of consumption, thereby
reducing energy transmission losses.
There is no cartel price manipulation of
the requisite natural resources, either.
Wars are not fought over access to, or
control over, resource availability. The
weakness of environmental energy is
that the renewable energy resources are
intermittent, and not always able to supply
energy requirements when they are most
needed. There are windless or cloudy days,
and the sun never shines at night.
There are, however, known average
renewable resource availabilities. It
is possible to store excess energy
generation from renewables in batteries,
thereby smoothing out the peaks and
troughs of power availability. Historically,
this has been done for off-grid solar
installations using lead-acid batteries --
mainly valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA)
batteries. This technology is energy-
inefficient, space-inefficient and heavy
to move, and it degrades quickly if more
than a small percentage of stored energy
is withdrawn from the batteries.
A new day has dawned for
renewable energy storage with the
continuing development of new
storage technologies. While other
technologies are coming, lithium is the
main contender at this time. It solves
many of the problems associated with
lead-acid batteries. At this stage, the
equipment price per kilowatt-hour of
energy storage capability is still very
high. To counteract this and make
storage more accessible for general
use, Design Ecology has developed
The future of environmental energy
RENEWABLE ENERGY